Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) workers repair an underground pipe on September 05, 2025 in San Francisco, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The U.S. economy lost jobs in February, a month hit by severe winter weather and strikes at major health care providers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
50,000 and down 92,000 for the month, compared with a downwardly revised January total of less than 126,000. February payrolls declined for the third time in the past five months, after a sharp revision showing a 17,000 decline in December.
At the same time, the unemployment rate rose to 4.4% as jobs fell in key sectors. A broader measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons, fell to 7.9%, or 0.2 percentage point, from January’s level.
Health care, the primary driver of wage growth, saw a loss of 28,000 due to a strike at Kaiser Permanente, which laid off more than 30,000 workers in Hawaii and California. Although the strike was resolved, it occurred during the week of the BLS survey so it was subtracted from the jobs total.
Although the jobs picture was weak, wages rose more than expected. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% for the month and 3.8% from a year ago, both 0.1 percentage point above forecasts.
“I think the hope tells us that the labor market is stable, maybe too much,” Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, told CNBC. “We have higher-than-target inflation print and oil prices are rising. How long they will last, we don’t know, but both of our targets are now at our risk.”
Information services, a sector hit by artificial intelligence-related cuts, also lost jobs, down 11,000, part of a 12-month trend that has seen the sector lose an average of 5,000 a month. Manufacturing saw a loss of 12,000 despite tariffs aimed at reallocating jobs overseas.
Federal government employment also fell, by 10,000 for the month. President Donald Trump’s efforts to supplement federal payrolls have seen a slide of 330,000 jobs, or 11% of the total workforce, since October 2024, a few months before Trump takes office, according to the BLS.
Transportation and warehousing also saw a decline of 11,000. Social assistance was one of the few sectors to post a gain of 9,000 percent.
Daly warns that labor market data is volatile.
“I don’t think you can look at this report, but I don’t think you should do more than one month of data,” he said.
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(tags to translate)Jobs Statistics
